


Cloud Cover

by SapphyreLily



Series: Seijou 4 Week 2016 [5]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Depressive Thoughts, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 10:31:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7570750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphyreLily/pseuds/SapphyreLily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seijoh 4 Week Day 5 - Rainy Day</p><p>The pitter patter of droplets can quickly escalate into a roaring storm, a howling typhoon. It's a swirling mess that has no real beginning - it just <i>happens</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cloud Cover

Rain is dreary and weary and sad. It’s an emulation of feelings poured out from some secret place, an act that occurs because of too much holding back.

Issei loves the rain on a normal day, but today, it’s just too much.

It’s one of those days, one of those days that he just feels empty, feels like nothing he’s done will ever be enough to make up for what he _isn’t_.

It’s one of those days that he’d like nothing better than to curl up and stare at the wall, sighing and cursing himself, because he’s so _weak._

He wants to do exactly that, but his boyfriends would be awake soon, and he didn’t like making them worry.

(Did they even worry? Did they even see? When he was upset, nobody seemed to notice. Only when he was perfectly fine did they ask if he was feeling down.)

(For a bunch of people who were supposed to know him inside and out, their emotional metres were severely off the charts. In a bad way.)

He gets up, gently untangles himself from Takahiro's grip and pads off to the bathroom.

After a quick brush of his teeth, he laces up his running shoes and sets out into the rain. He leaves no note, because his magnet on the fridge has already been shifted to the ‘Out for a run' square on the chart.

It’s drizzling outside, a light pitter-patter that promises to turn into something heavier. The tiny drops are like running through mist, and he savours the cooling effect.

Before long, his prediction is fulfilled, raindrops coming down faster and heavier, fat enough to hurt, but not yet enough to drench him. The stinging slap of each droplet dredges up poorly buried feelings, a monster lurking just beneath his skin.

The way people talk over him, as if he is not there. The way people keep calling for him, summoning him to complete their work, or just so they can rant at him.

Not that he minds most of the time, but it’s annoying to have to listen, irritating to be taken at face value. Just because he’s quiet does not mean that he’s someone who can be pushed around.

(It means nothing if he doesn’t speak up for himself, but how can he?)

(How can he speak up, air out his own problems, when there are people out there who are hurting more, who have bigger issues that don’t have an easy solution, who can’t find it in themselves to pick themselves up after a particularly bad fall?)

(No, no. He can’t do that. He can’t be selfish. He can’t pour out his woes when they are so _menial_ , so shallow and predictable.)

(All he wants is for someone to listen when he is feeling low, but there is always someone else who is worse off than him. He can’t. He can’t do that to someone else, someone else who needs the comfort more than him.)

(God, why is he so selfish?)

He’s good with people on a normal day. He’s not bubbly like Oikawa, but he’s a steady presence that others like to talk to. He’s not positive and encouraging like Iwaizumi, but he can say the barest minimum and lift their spirits. He’s not as humorous as Hanamaki (as loath as he is to admit it), and more often than not, his jokes fall flat. He’s pretty sure no one other than his boyfriends understand his particular brand of humour, and it’s more than a little upsetting.

The rain is coming down in sheets now, the drops lashing angrily at his exposed skin. He knows he shouldn’t, but he stops under a tree for a moment, seeking a reprieve from his self-punishment.

Thunder booms somewhere in the distance, and the sound is in time with the slow, melancholy thump of his heart.

He steps back out into the rain and tilts his head back, letting the water slap him.

There’s nobody out in this infernal weather, so it doesn’t matter if he’s standing in the middle of the path, contemplating the uselessness of himself.

How he takes things too seriously, how he always says the wrong thing, how the way he acts is inappropriate and leaves a bad impression on everyone. Each negative thought is a blight upon him, something that needs to be washed away, but instead, all thinking about them does is peel open the cracked exterior of his mask, baring his selfish, needy heart to the world.

As each frustration rises to the front of his mind, a crack in his heart grows larger, until he can no longer hold back.

He clenches his fists, opens his mouth – but no sound comes out. He screams silently, hot tears pouring down his cheeks, mingling with the ice cold rainwater still being dumped from the sky. He squeezes his eyes shut, clutching the front of his shirt as he wheezes, short of breath from screaming too long.

(A silent scream for a silent boy – how depressingly fitting, because he is nothing more than an echo, something that was, yet wasn’t, something that fills in the background but can never stand in the front.)

He feels hollow. There’s a void in his chest, an empty ache, a phantom pulse, a distant reminder that _this is what you truly are; dust and ashes, nothing to nothing, a shadow and little more._

His head feels so heavy. An enormous weight that presses in on all sides, slowly crushing his coherent thoughts, compressing him to less of a person than he started out as.

(Not that he was much of a person to begin with.)

He doesn’t want to cry, doesn’t want to open up and bare the mess of writhing maggots where his heart is supposed to lie. He doesn’t want to acknowledge that he really is _nothing_ , that he was born to be an empty shell, purposed to be nothing more than a doormat, a footstool.

He doesn’t want to realise that he has never been special, and he will never be.

(Why can’t he just admit to himself that some people were not born for greatness, and they were meant to be nothing but a stepping stone?)

(He’s average, just average, no, no, even less so. He wasn’t meant to be anything at all.)

He chokes on a breath and keeps running.

He wonders, if there is more to the meaning of names after all.

He wonders if his parents knew what they were doing when they named him, if they knew that they were setting him up to be silent his whole life.

(‘Issei’ means ‘quiet one’, or ‘the best at being quiet’. He wonders, oh he wonders, if they knew they were condemning him to be a mute.)

(When was the last time he told someone how he actually felt?)

He tilts his head back, widens his strides, presses on through the stinging rain and the crackling lightning overhead.

He runs until the rain has lightened up, until he is drenched to the bone, clothes clinging uncomfortably, socks and shoes soaked and squishy. He runs until he has been drenched not only by the rain from the sky, but also the splash of rainwater pooled near the curb of the road, thrown up in sheets whenever a car rushes past.

He is grimy and sandy and trembling with cold and exertion when he finally decides to go home.

He wonders how well he can pull off a lie when he’s faced by the three of them.

x.x.x.x.x

The three of them are spread out over the house when he gets back, and they all but force him into the shower when they catch sight of him. He does so with the tiniest smile, the slightest easing of the ache in his chest at the concern and care in their actions.

The water is hot, nearly scalding, but he takes heart in that, allows the liquid to wash away the grime and soothe the aches in his muscles. He is almost content when he emerges from the bathroom, finally warm and sleepy enough, the nagging insecurity pushed aside for the moment.

Only one person is on the couch when he flops down on it, curling up on his side to try keep warm. He can feel the weight on the other side of the couch ease up as Tooru gets off, settling down next to him and pressing their bodies together.

“You smell nice.” Tooru mumbles, nuzzling into the side of his neck. Issei smiles a little, still too drained to formulate a proper answer. Instead, he lifts his arm and prods Tooru away, leaning over and burying his face in his shirt, hands going around his waist.

Tooru’s hands come up to thread through his curls, hugging him close. They don’t speak for a while, and Issei is lulled into a sense of peace from the steady rise and fall of his chest.

“Issei?”

“Mm?”

“Did your run help?” His voice is soothing, soft like melted honey and cream. It’s comforting and familiar, a gentle enquiry, a loving embrace. Issei nods, because he doesn’t feel like making an effort to talk.

(He wants to delude himself a little longer.)

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He shakes his head no.

(He doesn’t question how Tooru knows. Tooru _always_ knows, somehow.)

Tooru sighs, the tiniest puff of air, and hugs him closer, the circle of his arms almost crushing. “We love you, you know. No matter what you think. _I_ love you.”

Something about the way he says it brings tears to Issei’s eyes, and his exhale is shaky. Tooru nuzzles his hair, whispering.

“I know what it’s like, too. That insecurity. That feeling that you’re not good enough, you’re not wanted, that people are better off without you.” His hands are gentle, massaging little circles into his scalp as they tug on his hair.

“But that’s not true. You are essential to the rest of us. You are caring and listening and kind. You are my rock, and sometimes, you ground me better than Hajime does. There’s a part of me that has you deeply integrated into it, and it’s a part of me that I can never, and _will_ never, let go of.” Tooru kisses his forehead lovingly.

“There are four of us, and we are a whole. We can’t function as well without you. We are stronger and better together than alone.”

Issei huffs and squeezes Tooru more tightly, a few tears leaking out. His voice is thick and scratchy. “Thanks.”

He gets a tight hug in response. “I’m always ready to listen, if you need me to. Don’t feel that you can’t. You can talk to _any_ of us.”

Someone lifts his legs and slides under him, just as another person covers his head with their body. There are arms around his waist and a crushing warmth around his head, and a deep breath tells him that it is Hajime next to him, meaning Takahiro is under him.

“We’re all here for you, alright? Don’t give up on us.” Hajime mumbles, pressing a kiss to his temple.

The arms around his waist tighten, and Takahiro says, “We would be lost without you. You’re my favourite, you’re not allowed to go anywhere and leave me with these two.”

Issei snorts as Tooru protests wildly and Hajime smacks him, but he is feeling so much lighter already.

Maybe they’re right, and they do need him around. But the truth is that he needs them so much more than they need him.

He’s okay with that.

**Author's Note:**

> Uh well. I don't know what just happened.


End file.
